Damning report into child sex abuse allegations against UN peacekeepers points to ‘gross institutional failure’
Among those said to have looked the other way were the UN children’s agency, Unicef, as well as human rights staffers.
The United Nations’ “gross institutional failure” to act on allegations that French and other peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic (CAR) led to even more assaults, according to a new report released on Thursday.
One young boy who initially reported an attack on his friends more than a year ago now says he has been raped, too.
The independent panel found that the accounts by children as young as nine of trading oral sex and other acts in exchange for food in the middle of a war zone in early 2014 were “passed from desk to desk, inbox to inbox, across multiple UN offices, with no one willing to take responsibility.”
Among those said to have looked the other way were the UN children’s agency, Unicef, as well as human rights staffers.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, in a statement, expressed “profound regret that these children were betrayed by the very people sent to protect them” and said he accepted the panel’s broad findings.
The welfare of the victims and the accountability of the perpetrators appeared to be an afterthought
The panel, led by Canadian judge Marie Deschamps, found that UN staffers failed or hesitated to pass the children’s allegations to more senior officials, sometimes because of political concerns with France involved; showed “unconscionable delays” in protecting and supporting the children; failed to further investigate the allegations; failed to properly vet peacekeepers for past abuses; and, overall, appeared more concerned with whether one UN staffer had improperly alerted French authorities.